Broken Clockworks
by quorra laraex
Summary: She's a fugitive–a downright deceitful felon, and frankly, he doesn't care one bit. – IchiRuki; o2/5o.
1. it's all on the money, darling

**title:** it's all on the money, darling  
**summary:** She was a dime when he was a worthless copper penny. – IchiRuki; o1/5o.

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He first sees her when he's sitting on the shoulders of his dad, resting his tiny, stubby fingers along the trails of slicked-back black hair. He's picking at the tiny little gel fuzz on the tips of the stubble along his father's head and a tiny thought about their hair colors cross his mind for a second before he meets the eyes of the royal princess.

Except he doesn't know she's a princess. Not yet, at least.

She's his age, he thinks, and he doesn't even know her name (and despite the fact he doesn't or _shouldn't_ even like girls because girls were mean, cruel, and beat him in karate), he wants to know it, because something in her eyes tells him she needs a friend. He thinks he's qualified to fulfill that role.

The girl's in silks of gold and red trimmings with floral imprinting and a butterfly pin in her hair. He thinks she looks like an angel, like his mom. Their stare holds on for a good, full minute, and Ichigo thinks that's enough for his satisfaction.

"Mommy, who is that?" he pats at his mother's shoulder as he bends from his father's height.

"Rukia Kuchiki," she answers with one of her delicate smiles. She must be thinking the same thing as Ichigo because her eyes follow the girl as the nobles pass along through the crowd. "She's the king's daughter. Such a beautiful girl, isn't she?"

Ichigo doesn't answer, keeping his eyes on her steadily until her carriage is out of view.

-x-

The next time he sees her, he's thirteen.

He's visiting the cemetery alone around six o'clock when he sees a cloaked figure wandering aimlessly. The person is around his height, maybe shorter, and he can't help but wonder aloud.

"Do you need help?" He asks after he places flowers beside his mother's grave. The white and yellow bundle was freshly picked and carefully wrapped by him. Daisies had always been her favorite.

"I need more time, extra time." It's a girl's voice.

"Time? For what?"

He can't see her face, but he _knows_ she's smirking.

The girl huddles down the staircase after that, and he (unwillingly) follows her. Girls shouldn't be wandering alone in the evening in cities like Karakura. Ichigo has no idea who she is, but he knows he's going to protect her. It's the type of person he is. He's vowed it since his mother's death.

Never again.

"Hey, stop, kid!" Ichigo grabs her wrist, not too hard, but in firm grip and spins her around before she reaches the last step before the grass. The hood of her cloak avails her face and falls to her shoulders.

Her eyes meet his and he can feel something in his spine tingle. It's as if looking at her is like looking at a diamond because he really can't shake his gaze on her. Perhaps his mother was right: she _is_ quite beautiful. Her eyebrows tense sternly and she stomps her foot on his. There's recognition of pain and when his face turns red at the burn she smiles this stupid little girl smile.

"What the—!" He wants to hit her, but he knows this isn't his karate dojo. He stopped those classes long ago. His annoyance is evident in his tone as he snaps, "Shouldn't you be in your castle or something?"

It takes a couple of seconds for her face to change expression. She nods and looks down.

A voice booms from behind them, and Ichigo can almost _feel_ the fear that's present in her oceanic orbs.

"_Princess_!" an angry guard trudges forth her as she pushes Ichigo into a bush in panic before her attempt to run, but she's too late, and Ichigo can remember getting pricked by rose thorns. The man grips sturdily onto her wrists and the princess yelps at the pain.

"You're _hurting_ me!" she says and Ichigo is about to stand up and use a few kicks on this guy before she looks at his eyes hidden in the cloud of green and red and brown pleading him to be quiet and stay unnoticed. And for the oddest reason, he feels weighed down and he cannot get up. He can't help her and she doesn't want him to.

"You are _not_ allowed to leave the palace!" the guard growls at her, tightening his bruising grip on her arm. "You'll end up just like your scum of a sister, you disobedient _brat_."

She cries, and Ichigo knows he'll never forgive himself. He stays in the rosebush for what seems like days, refusing to stand and go home even when their voices are long gone. He's pricked all over when he finally allows himself free space, but he doesn't care because all he can hear are her muffled screams.

-x-

When Ichigo Kurosaki is sixteen years old, he sees numerous news articles and advertisements about the royal heir, who is missing and wanted. The runaway princess, they call her. The beautiful shrewd, others would say.

-x-

"It's funny where life takes us," her voice is honey-laced and slick and is carried through the wind that breezes through his hair. She's standing against the street lamp in the dim fluorescence of a January night. He doesn't need any more light to notice her bruised eye and busted bottom lip. Her eyes are still as he remembers as a child, an oceanic sunset. Except now, it's covered in black and blue, splotched with pulsating veins and deep, deep red in the corners. Rukia Kuchiki, former princess of the Kuchiki clan, honorary shit-show, smiles at the night as she inhales the fumes of her cigarette.

He breathes in the snow around them, silent. He's nineteen now, a med-student in the university of Kyoto, visiting his family here in Karakura. It's only the works of destiny to have him run into her on a sporadic spree—now, on the streets behind the liquor store at two in the morning.

"You must think I'm a selfish prick; that I should've been thankful for being born into that royal reality, and that I'm stupid for leaving it."

She flinches when he says he doesn't.

"I think you're brave," he speaks barely loud enough. But she catches it, and she eyes him with tormented features. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For," he hesitates. He promised himself that if fate ever brought them back together again, he would have to tell her. "For not helping you—that day you ran away to the graveyard. I wanted to help you."

"Don't be sorry," she responds coldly. "If they saw you trying to help me, they would have had you executed."

It takes him a couple of incense strings longer before he knows what he could say to that. "Things could have been different."

She shuts her eyes, and leans further into the steel pole behind her. "I know."

"At least now you have all the time you want."

She smiles softly—barely, before she goes on. "And to think, today would have been the day they would have began to arrange my wedding with some other prat."

His brown eyes widen a bit. "Happy eighteenth birthday."

It is funny where life takes them, together or apart. She used to be the richest girl in all of their country, while he was merely just some sort of peasant in the eyes of her nobility. And _now_—now she's on the streets. Rukia Kuchiki is on the streets, without a dime besides her looks, and that's why she's damaged, and it's almost as if it's his fault.

She saved his life, and she's barely made it out alive.

For that, he owes her his own.

Ichigo lends the girl his jacket, because it's snowing and she's in nothing but trashy stockings and a distressed champagne-coloured (or was it spilt?) dress. She shoves it away from her and tells him she doesn't need it. If only she wasn't so stubborn, he thinks as he takes off his navy blue scarf and (without permission) wraps it around her neck.

"What do you think you're doing?" she grimly drawls, dropping her cigarette in a mountain of ice next to her feet, surprised by his unusual assertive demeanor.

"Things are going to change."

And with that, Rukia has a glimpse of what it is like to have someone care for her for the very first time. She feels warm enough without his coat.

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**fin.**

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**notes:** so i hope you enjoyed this. alternate universe, duh. so this is going to be a collection of prompts and drabbles, AU or canon!verse or just plain crack, whatever, the chapters will vary.  
**notes2:** please tell me what you think! that would be awesome, really. i need real hard feedback when i write for ichiruki.


	2. pumpkin spice and city lights

**title:** pumpkin spice and city lights  
**summary:** She's a fugitive–a downright deceitful felon, and frankly, he doesn't care one bit. – IchiRuki; o2/5o.

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It's when her ringtone chimes repeatedly under her pillow and she could feel the emerging vibrations under her hair when she knows she's late for her morning run, _and _late for her English class. Great.

The college student hops off her oh-so-comfortable cushion of heavenly warmth in nothing but a tank and underwear and socks from yesterday's Workout Wednesday with her best friend Rangiku. Speaking of the busty blonde, she hadn't woken up Rukia! She's probably stealing from a boy she's been mooching off of the past week or so. The groggy-eyed girl skips into the shower in a rush, barely making it passed the slippery floor—damned socks. After her quick waterfall and mascara touching up here and there, she slips into warm sweats and a loose cotton shirt that barely reaches the top of her navel, grabs her dorm keys and strolls down the halls and into warm October air.

The atmosphere is so much more comfortable here in small town of Karakura—and she wishes she could savor it the entire day.

But she knows she can't.

She strolls down the dormitories with a weak smile that'll fool the people she doesn't know—(because what can she say, she _is_ quite the actress)—and makes her way to the campus coffee shop before heading to her only class of the day (which she was already forty-five minutes late for) around the corner. Boringly, they had been studying the works of Shakespeare and medieval scripture as well. She thinks that maybe missing the first half of the lecture could probably be a good thing.

Luckily for her, the door is already open, advancing her to tiptoe into the room to sit in one of the nearest open seats, tripping silently on her feet beforehand. Professor Ukitake is scribbling bullshit onto the whiteboard which she seemingly didn't care too much about.

"Glad you decided to join us, Miss Kuchiki," the white haired teacher replies snidely, without even looking to her direction.

Damn it. How did he always know?

"Why are you always late?" a boyish voice says beside her. She hadn't even looked at her surrounding once she had plummeted to her seat. Her eyes squint a bit when she turns to eye him. He's not familiar to her, not really.

It takes her a twenty second stare from him before she snaps back into reality. "Were you always in this class?"

He nods uneasily. "I'm Ichigo."

"Well, Ichigo—," she briefly hesitates. His name doesn't seem as foreign as it should on her tongue. "It's nice to meet you. I'm—"

"Late," a dark voice chimes in, interrupting her fraternizing. Professor Ukitake glares daggers at her and she knows it's time for her to shut up. "How about you sit elsewhere, Miss Kuchiki?"

She groans, giving the boy beside her a look of dismissal before she saunters to the back of the room. When Ukitake points at the Starbucks drink on the desk beside Ichigo's pen, the teen ultimately reassures his teacher by telling him that it's his, covering her name with his thumb when he holds the carton cup. _Rukia_, he reads. He looks back along the several rows of seats and meets her tanzanite gaze. He holds up her drink in some kind of silent toast and smirks, taking a sip.

The girl gapes at him and her lock on his eyes harden.

_Dick_, he reads her lips.

"Pumpkin spice latte, huh?" he asks making his way toward her after class had ended.

"Yeah, what's it to ya?" she asks, snatching her drink from his grasp, which was still surprisingly warm. Yet she isn't sure if it was the warmth radiating off the skin of her hand or the drink itself. Rukia shakes the irrelevant thought.

"It was my mother's favorite."

_Was_. She's always been good at catching key words. Rukia steadily eyes him, and immediately knows it's time to change the subject. "Why'd you dye your hair?"

"It's natural."

"_Oh, please_. And I'm six feet tall."

"It is!"

She rolls her eyes. Whatever. "Liar. Look, I gotta run."

"Sure you do," he drawls sarcastically since she had just accused him of lying.

"I've got errands to run, drugs to sell, diamonds to steal," she smirks, turning her head toward the direction she had been trailing in. "—people to kill."

It's his turn to roll his eyes. "Bye, Kuchiki."

-x-

The raven-haired girl hoists up the tight leather pants on top of her black leotard fitting her slim shape. Her busty blonde friend throws her keys that she'll need, which also consisted of a pocket knife and some other few knick knacks hanging off the chains. She mumbles a thanks before placing on a simple, dark, masquerade mask which sides could be interpreted as the wings of a butterfly. Rukia ties her hair up in a firm bun on the top of her head; slick and ready.

"Give 'em hell," Rangiku remarks with a slight grin and a devilish twinkle in her eye.

"Like always."

She hops onto her windowsill and scrunches low on her heels. She silently jumps to the ground and makes her way deep, deep down the dark city of Karakura unseen in the night.

One step, two step, three.

Hop.

One step, two step, three.

Hop.

Repeat.

She's on threads—elastic wires, balancing herself and making her way across the gray beams that blend in with the sky. She's fast, quick, and steady on her toes. She's always been.

Rukia slips her way past the vents of the department store and slings down to the window by one of the wires. She knocks on it once, twice, in a sporadic manner, and the glass is immediately lifted by a ratty employee who was never scheduled to work that day. He lets her in after she pulls out a tiny, opaque plastic compartment from a pouch on her belt. There are about two dozen multicolored candy-looking tablets in them, and after he examines them, he allows her to roam the department.

The girl smirks and trails down the empty corridors, used to seeing in barely illuminated places. She roams the jewelry aisles, observing each and every little emerald and ruby she can get her eyes on in their glass cases, and stops once she catches the diamonds. She picks up the keys hanging off their chain and inserts it into the keyhole, rotating it a couple of times smoothly before the glass door unlocks and shifts outward. She swipes a necklace and a couple of bracelets and of course, a ring or two before she replaces the jewelry with faux, identical jewels.

She's fast. She finishes before a clock could strike a minute, and before her supposed partner in crime could complain about their trade, she throws a golden, diamond embroidered neck lining at him and escapes through the window.

He doesn't even know her name; no one does. But they all know who she is.

"Shirayuki!" a dark voice calls out at her from the rooftop on her left before she heads down through an apartment fire escape.

Rukia pivots her head to the man's direction only to see a masked, dark-robed figure. The hero. She wonders how many times he's seen her, but hadn't done a thing about it—if he was as good as everyone proclaimed he was. He always caught the town's foes. Perhaps he had been waiting for a certain moment to catch her off guard. She ignores him after a quick glance and begins off again, leaping from the fire escape to top of yet another brick condominium.

Before she could take another sturdy hop, he appears in front of her. He's fast—faster than her, and she almost falls into him. Almost.

She'd have been a goner. Her feet take a halt and she recovers her balance in a spread stance. Before she could regain her full composure and sprint the opposing direction, he grips her arm. Silly boy, she thinks as her leg takes a full one-eighty and her heel is on the arch of his chest.

His crimson stained white mask doesn't flinch. Instead, their position slowly becomes uncomfortable. She doesn't allow herself to loosen. She also doesn't notice the dark colour of his hair.

"The great Zangetsu," she mimics. "What do you want?"

It takes him awhile to answer, and slow tingle creeps down her spine. She could feel his pulsating stare through that stupid mask of his. "Your ass in prison."

He recognizes those eyes.

"That's too bad," she shrugs with a smirk before her heel moves to the crook of his neck.

"Give me the diamonds," his tone becomes heavier in the atmosphere.

Rukia rolls her eyes bored before she escapes his grip with a turn of her wrist, moving in her own way. "You know, I'd rather not. I've got—"

"Errands to run, some drugs to sell, more diamonds to steal?" He initiates, seeing her lip quiver just a slight before her glare hardens and she flashes him an unforgettable sly smile.

"—people to kill," she finishes before she's gone, dropping from the roof and disappearing below, wire after wire.

She wonders why he hadn't finished her off, but the thought disappears when she feels the empty pouch connected to her belt.

"_Dick_!"

Ichigo feels the diamond layered assortment of jewels in the palm of his hand before shrugging off the hollow mask which had been rather uncomfortable due to the connected dark locks before he can return the prizes back.

Still only one thought is roaming his mind, however.

Rukia Kuchiki, always late, always clumsy, pumpkin-spice latte lover, honors English-standing, dwarf-sized girl—is no one but Karakura's most wanted criminal, Shirayuki—and he had just let her go without a single care in the world.

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**fin.**

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**notes: **i'm so sorry for the late and lazy update! i've had half of this saved for awhile now but i hadn't got around to finishing it so i finally took up the time this morning to do so. i'm not very proud of how it turned out tho. but don't worry, i have way more ideas to do for upcoming chapters :)  
**notes2: **it's been a shitty week, please cut me some slack ok  
**notes3:**_ pllleeeasse_ review! it would be amazing. thanks


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